Monday, March 18, 2013

I need an accountant who is up to speed on writers'/artists' tax affairs, and in particular one who understands the intricacies of residence and/or obligation to file in more than one country.

I have been what I believe is called "domiciled" in Germany for several years but most of my income arises in the US; I am also a UK citizen which turns out to mean the Inland Revenue likes to be sent a tax return. I came over to the US last October and will probably be here through the end of May, having spent 4 months in Vermont, 1 in New Hampshire, 2 in Texas and 1 in a state yet to be determined. I might spend the summer in the States (state to be determined) or I might return to Europe; I might go back to Germany or might go to the UK.

The agents representing Lightning Rods overseas say its foreign publishers must deduct 30% taxes at source unless I provide a certificate of tax residence in some other country. I have been filing my primary tax return in the US all this time, but the forms relating to the relevant certificate don't seem to fit my situation. It would help to talk to an accountant who understands these things.

I've asked for recommendations from various writers and artists I know; some say they are too poor to afford an accountant, so prepare their own tax returns; others have an accountant who is not really especially au fait with writers' affairs, or not especially au fait with expats. It seems just possible that one of the readers of pp might know someone who could help; if you do, I'd love to know.

I have filed form 4868 for a 6-month extension, so the US return does not need to be turned around by April 17; it's more a question of getting things straightened out for the longer term and of providing correct documentation to foreign publishers. Again, if anyone has any good suggestions it would be enormously helpful if you could let me know.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Tariq Ali has a post on Kashmir on the LRB blog; he links to a piece on the Caravan by Sanjay Kak. Dumbstruck.

IF THERE IS AN AXIS ALONG WHICH JUSTICE
can be slowly approximated, then the apparatus of impunity seems
designed to grievously wound those who try and make their way on it.
Across the array of 214 cases in Alleged Perpetrators, you can
read a consistent pattern in the cuts deployed by the machinery of the
State: Delay. Distract. Divert. And if that doesn’t work: Subvert,
Suborn, Seduce, and Bribe.

This usually begins with the ‘ex-gratia’ government relief, payable
for “death or disability as a result of violence attributable to the
breach of law and order or any other form of civic commotion”. That’s
far too genteel a description for the instances in this report, many of
which read like straightforward executions. But the ex-gratia is at
least doled out quickly, a secular version of blood money, usually
around Rs. 100,000, drawing distraught
families into a relationship with the state, which they may be loathe to
do otherwise. The more elusive promise comes from the enigmatically
titled “SRO-43”, the Statutory Rules and Orders that govern
“compassionate employment of family members of victims of militant
related action or other specified reasons”. Here, the possibility of a
government job is held out as a palliative, a means of tempering the
anger of the victim’s families over a longer time span. You may never
get that promised job, but waiting for it, and negotiating for it, will
certainly put a knot in your tongue.

The futility of such compassion, and the deep cynicism underlying it,
is of course obvious to everybody it touches, because the entire
mechanism is otherwise constructed around incentives that encourage the
killing of ‘militants’. Everything else we now recognise as the back
teeth of the machine necessarily rolls along in the wake of that
juggernaut of killing: extortion, fake encounters, reward money.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Things have been bad for reasons I won't go into. I am now at the MacDowell Colony (every cloud has a silver lining). Very sporadic internet access, good. But today I am doing laundry.

I go online and search for "Michael Lewis" to see what he's up to - and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a review of John Lanchester's Capital by Michael Lewis! At the NYRB!

I have not yet got to the meat of the review; I have only just come to Lewis's account of Britain in the early 80s:

And the most extraordinary anticommercial attitudes could be found, in
places that existed for no purpose other than commerce. There was a
small grocery store around the corner from my flat, which carried a rare
enjoyable British foodstuff, McVities’ biscuits. One morning the
biscuits were gone. “Oh, we used to sell those,” said the very sweet
woman who ran the place, “but we kept running out, so we don’t bother
anymore.”

This is lovely. Yes, this is recognizably Britain (O Britain, Britain, Britain). But if there is one thing lovelier than sheer unadulterated British wrongheaded woollymindedness, it is seeing this through the eye of the young Michael Lewis. The genius of Lewis is to enable the reader to appreciate the ingenuity of persons capable of spotting a market inefficiency and exploiting it - Bill Walsh developing the passing game in football, Billy Beane using statistics to get the most out of the cashstrapped Oakland A's. And with this genius comes incredulous outrage: incredulity, outrage, at those who have institutionalized sheer lumpen stupidity. (O Michael Lewis, Michael Lewis.) Here we find the young Lewis, long before he has made a career out of incredulous outrage, confronted with the dear dim cluelenessness of the typical British corner shop. And showing a keen eye for one of the pleasures of foggy island life: McVitie's Digestives! Heaven.

(The review can only go downhill after this, but those unable to resist diminishing returns can find the rest here.)

Secondhand Sales

The Last Samurai was published in 2000 by Talk Miramax Books. First Talk went under, then Harvey Weinstein split from Disney and Miramax Books handed its books over to Hyperion, then Hyperion dwindled and handed the books back to Miramax who were not, in fact, interested in publishing books.

For a decade of the Miramax Wars readers faced a dilemma. They sometimes want to buy copies of The Last Samurai for friends. It was tempting to buy the book "As New" for $1.70 + $3.99 postage rather than for $14.95 with free shipping in an order of $20 or more, especially if there were many, many friends. The author got nothing on a secondhand sale -- but then, the author would get only $1.12 on the new book. To send the author $1.12 the reader would have to pay an extra $9.24. That's a pretty expensive goodwill gesture.

Goodwill doesn't have to cost that much. PayPal takes 30 cents + 3% on each transaction; if you send the author $1.50 by PayPal she will get $1.15. Many readers sportingly sent a donation - some were insanely generous, all went far beyond the call of duty.

New Directions has now reissued The Last Samurai, so if you want a new copy (or an e-book) you can easily get one. For those who find $0.01+$3.99p&p compelling --we're always grateful for the kindness of strangers.

i+e

John Chris Jones' The Internet and Everyone can be bought for £10: write to jcj AT publicwriting.netJCJ's website has a selection of reviews of this pioneering book.

Berlin

Linguistics

Greek, Latin

RhapsodesSociety for the Oral Reading of Greek and Latin: has recordings of Homer, Pindar, many others.

PerseusExtensive body of Greek and Latin texts in the original languages and in translation; offers ability to click on a word for a definition, grammatical information. Also has lexica, grammars, various other resources. NB: the texts are generally editions that are out of copyright rather than modern versions, so the reader is for the most part offered texts reflecting the state of scholarship at the end of the 19th century. The texts also have no apparatus criticus. So it is a useful resource, but one to be used with caution.